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[b49b2e] Heading is descriptive -- Remove inapplicable examples of empty headings #2405

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[b49b2e] Heading is descriptive -- Remove inapplicable examples of empty headings #2405

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62d27f1
Remove inapplicable examples of empty headings
daniel-montalvo Apr 15, 2026
c122bf5
Merge branch 'develop' into remove-inapplicable-empty-headings
daniel-montalvo Apr 28, 2026
ddd318d
Add background note
daniel-montalvo Apr 28, 2026
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22 changes: 2 additions & 20 deletions _rules/heading-descriptive-b49b2e.md
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Expand Up @@ -40,6 +40,8 @@ Each target element describes the topic or purpose of the first [perceivable con

Headings that are visible but not in the accessibility tree are a failure of [Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships][sc131]. These are not tested by this rule but they can still fail [Success Criterion 2.4.6 Headings and Labels][sc246].

Testing tools treat empty headings `<h1></h1>` or `div role="heading" aria-level="1"></div>` differently. Some fail empty headings under 1.3.1, others under 2.4.6, others pass these headings because they are ignored by most assistive technologies, not causing accessibility barriers at all. This rule doesn't include examples of empty headings because there is currently no harmonized approach for testing them.

### Assumptions

This rule assumes that the [flat tree][] order is close to the reading order as elements are rendered on the page. Due to positioning, it is possible to render a document in an order that greatly differs from the tree order, in which case the content which is visually associated with a heading might not be the content following it in tree order and this rule might fail while [Success Criterion 2.4.6 Headings and Label][sc246] is still satisfied.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -215,26 +217,6 @@ This `h1` heading element is not [included in the accessibility tree][].
</html>
```

#### Inapplicable Example 3

This `h1` heading element has an empty [accessible name][].

```html
<html lang="en">
<h1></h1>
</html>
```

#### Inapplicable Example 4

Semantic heading has an empty [accessible name][].

```html
<html lang="en">
<p role="heading" aria-level="1"></p>
</html>
```

[decorative]: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#dfn-pure-decoration 'WCAG definition of Pure decoration'
[flat tree]: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-scoping/#flat-tree 'Definition of flat tree'
[included in the accessibility tree]: #included-in-the-accessibility-tree 'Definition of included in the accessibility tree'
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